Language guide
Turkish Names: Meanings, Origins & Traditions
Turkish names are recorded here in the modern Turkish Latin alphabet, which replaced the Arabic-based Ottoman script in 1928. Because Ottoman Turkish absorbed a large Arabic and Persian vocabulary, many familiar Turkish names, such as Elif or Emir, go back to Arabic or Persian words, while others, such as Arslan or Aynur, contain native Turkic elements. Each entry states which of these applies, based on the cited sources.
- Published names
- 7961
- Scripts in our data
- Latin
- ISO 639-1
- tr
Browse Turkish names
1,936 names · page 45 of 81
- “great lord”From Turkic · TurkishUnisex3 syllablesEditorial
- “huge, very big”From Turkic · TurkishUnisex3 syllablesEditorial
- “fighting ram; wild sheep”From Turkic · TurkishUnisex2 syllablesEditorial
- “sky realm”From Turkic · TurkishUnisex2 syllablesEditorial
- “of heavenly or deep-rooted origin”From Turkic · TurkishUnisex2 syllablesEditorial
- “famous name”From Turkic · TurkishUnisex2 syllablesEditorial
- “renowned lineage”From Turkic · TurkishUnisex2 syllablesEditorial
- “blue water”From Turkic · TurkishUnisex2 syllablesEditorial
- “the Göktürks, an early Turkic state”From Turkic · TurkishUnisex2 syllablesEditorial
- “guest; lodging place; mansion”From Turkic · Turkish, KazakhBoy2 syllablesEditorial
- “rosebud”From Turkic and Persian · TurkishUnisex3 syllablesEditorial
- “chestnut-brown, tawny”TurkishUnisex2 syllablesEditorial
- “tawny hero”From Turkic · TurkishUnisex3 syllablesEditorial
- “chestnut-brown, tawny; a Turkic-Mongol tribal name”TurkishUnisex2 syllablesEditorial
- “ember hero”From Turkic · TurkishUnisex2 syllablesEditorial
- “fiery, dynamic person”From Turkic · TurkishUnisex2 syllablesEditorial
- “guard of a forest”From Turkic · TurkishUnisex3 syllablesEditorial
- “leader goat; guide”TurkishUnisex3 syllablesEditorial
- “warm spring”From Turkic · TurkishUnisex2 syllablesEditorial
- “khan of song”From Turkic · TurkishUnisex3 syllablesEditorial
- “valley, stream; mountain hollow”From Turkic · TurkishUnisex1 syllableEditorial
- “poignant, moving; white falcon”From Turkic · TurkishUnisex2 syllablesEditorial
- “hollow sheltered from the wind”From Turkic · TurkishUnisex2 syllablesEditorial
- “Mongol emperor (1214-1294)”From Mongolic · TurkishUnisex3 syllablesEditorial
How Turkish names are written
Modern Turkish uses a 29-letter Latin alphabet introduced in 1928. Letters such as ç, ğ, ı, İ, ö, ş and ü matter for spelling: Gülnur and Gulnur are different spellings, and the dotless ı is a separate letter from i. Search on this site ignores these marks, but entries always show the documented spelling.
Where Turkish names come from
A name used in Turkish is not automatically Turkish in origin. Here is how the documented origins of the Turkish names published so far break down (a name with elements from two languages counts under both):
- Turkic4158
- Arabic2170
- Persian1209
- Greek42
- Mongolic39
- Hebrew28
- French14
Counted from 7961 published entries. Each name page explains its own etymology with sources.
Turkish names by meaning
Explore related languages
Turkish belongs to the Oghuz branch of the Turkic languages, together with Azerbaijani and Turkmen. Related languages share many words, but a name is listed under a language only when it is documented there.
Other languages: Uyghur · Kazakh · Kyrgyz · Uzbek · Tatar · Bashkir · Tajik
References for this page
- Wikipedia contributors. Turkic languages. Wikimedia Foundation, revision 1377797900. Accessed 2026-10-28. Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0.
- Wikipedia contributors. Turkish alphabet. Wikimedia Foundation, revision 1381762599. Accessed 2026-10-28. Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0.

